Mad DT Skills, Sexy Freckles and Waterloo
by PalisDelon
Summary: Greendale hosts a duct tape ball.


It was all Troy's fault, really.

When Dean Pelton announced over the PA that Greendale was hosting a duct tape ball, Jeff had shrugged it off. But then Troy got this look in his eye. Not his Sam Jackson look, but close to it. With all the films he and Abed had made, Troy had become good at making stuff out of duct tape, "It would be, like, the ultimate test of my mad DT skills."

So duct tape was bought, measurements were taken and Troy disappeared into a dust tape haze for a week. When Troy finally reappeared, there were outfits for everyone.

Jeff had no clue that duct tape had so many options. When he was 16 and working for a neighbors construction company he'd only seen the gray stuff. But then, he only kept that job for two weeks, so maybe he just hadn't had a chance to see ol' Bart finish off a cooling system with a roll of Leopard Print.

The guys outfits were the simplest, just suits, but Troy had managed to work in a few awesome details with design help from Abed.

Pierce was given a brown suit with silver trim along the cuffs and pant seams, "What's with the fairy makings?", Abed's suit was blue and white and some how looked like water, "I'm deep, like the ocean.", while Jeff's was maroon with an off-white patterned pocket square.

"Is this thing made out of a phone book page?" Jeff asked Troy the night of the dance.

"I had a few pages left over," Troy shrugged.

"Left over?" Jeff repeated, "Left over from what?"

But at that moment the girls entered the study room and all the talking stopped. Troy had out done himself with the ladies. Shirley was rocking a purple and pink sheath dress while Britta was ready to be crowned forest queen in a two-tone green dress. But standing to the back, and looking like some kind of fairy ballerina, was Annie in an off-white frothy... _thing_ that made Jeff forget to breath.

"Okay, now there are two categories for this," Troy's surprisingly serious voice shocked Jeff back to attention, "Best Single and Best Couple. I want to win both people! Here are you assignments. Shirley, Peirce, you're with me in the singles. Abed, Britta, your theme is nature. Jeff, Annie..." That's when Jeff saw the small maroon lines tucked into the seams of Annie's dress. "You two are ''making a connection'', and, so help me," he turned to Annie and took hold of her shoulders, "if anyone tries to say that the paper doesn't count, you tell them to re-read the rules – which I have a copy of."

Troy looked around the room, "Are we ready people? Let's do this!"

Troy swept the contest. It was Greendale after all. The biggest competition came from Starburns and Leonerd who took "Duct Tape Ball" literally and brought in a four foot tall ball of duct tape – they won third in the couples category

"This is so awesome!" Troy said after Dean Pelton handed him the "Best Single" award prize – a twenty dollar gift certificate to the campus store – "We are going to have the best time in Denver!"

"Denver? What?" Jeff was throughly confused.

"You didn't hear the buzz, did you?" Britta asked in a mocking tone, "The winner of each category gets the honor of representing their collage at a state wide ball in Denver." She laughed at the stunned look on Jeff's face

"Do Greendale proud Jeff," Abed said in a coach voice as he punched Jeff on his arm.

Perice just shook his head, "Better you then me."

Annie had taken charge of all the arrangements for the trip to Denver, so when they got to the hotel and the woman at the desk only gave them a card for one room both Jeff and Troy were surprised, "It's one-hundred and fifty dollars a night for a room we're not even going to sleep in." Annie told them in a no-nonsense tone of voice, "And I need help getting into my dress anyway."

So the guys had simply followed her up to the room and let her take over the bathroom. A half hour later, when Jeff was holding the edges of Annie's dress together and Troy taped her in, was when he first saw them – five freckles, dark against her pale skin, right where her waist tapered in, just the sort of thing that screamed "kiss here".

In the elevator on the way down to the ballroom Jeff stared at that spot, every time he danced with Annie he knew that under five layers of duct tape and phone book paper his hand was touching that spot, every time he closed his eyes his brain gave him the slow motion replay of that spot.

In fact, that spot had his brain so tied up that he completely missed it when the judges announced the winners. It was Annie's 100 watt smile and gleeful hopping that alerted him to the fact that... "We came in third!" Her hopping changed into a jump and Jeff suddenly found himself with an armful of Annie (with that spot tucked against his forearm).

But then someone brought out a microphone for karaoke and the next thing he knew Annie was gone, up on the makeshift stage singing with "Waterloo" with Troy.

"Oh my god, that was awesome!" Annie laughed as she ran up to Jeff when she finished.

"That was the most dope thing I've done without Abed."

"How do you even know about ABBA?" Jeff asked.

"Dude, don't be lame," Troy shook his head sadly at Jeff before turning to follow Annie out of the room.

Jeff looked around the ballroom as if it might hold a clue to what had just happened. But then a different thought crashed over him. He had been in the Denver Downtown Sheraton dozens of times, for Bar Association meetings, for political fund raisers, even a wedding or two. At those events the people in attendance had been wearing wool, silk, linen, velvet, cotton and satin, but this was the first time Jeff had ever seen someone in this ballroom wearing duct tape.

At those events he'd drunk a lot, taken girls upstairs and helped them out of their dresses, but this was the first time there wouldn't be anything happening after the dress was undone.

At those events he was surrounded by arrogant, shallow, people and he was just like them, but this time he was in the company of honest friends (and their sexy freckles) and he couldn't be happier.


End file.
